Singapore shares open higher on Friday; STI up 0.21% to 3,368.14

SINGAPORE stocks opened higher on Friday, with the Straits Times Index gaining 0.21 per cent or 7.09 points to 3,368.14 as at 9.06am after United States shares closed stronger.

On the Singapore bourse, gainers outnumbered losers 98 to 48, or about two securities up for every one down, after 48.4 million securities worth S$98.7 million changed hands.

Among the most heavily traded by volume, SinoCloud Group stayed unchanged at S$0.001 with 5.0 million shares traded. AEM Holdings rose 2.7 per cent or S$0.03 to S$1.13 with 4.2 million shares traded. Yangzijiang Shipbuilding Holdings stayed flat at S$1.51 with 2.1 million shares traded.

Banking stocks opened stronger on Friday, with United Overseas Bank up 0.5 per cent or S$0.13 to S$26.79; DBS Group Holdings, up 0.7 per cent or S$0.18 to S$26.49; and OCBC Bank, up 0.4 per cent or S$0.04 to S$11.58.

Other active index stocks included Keppel Corp, down 0.8 per cent or S$0.05 to S$6.54; Wilmar International, up 0.5 per cent or S$0.02 to S$3.91; and Singtel, up 0.3 per cent or one Singapore cent to S$3.53.

European stocks drew to a lower close on Thursday, with the pan-European Stoxx 600 index closing 0.2 per cent lower, amid weaker performance of technology shares and hopes of monetary policy easing by the European Central Bank. The DAX index closed 0.92 per cent lower to 12,227.85.

In the US, the Dow Jones industrial index gained 0.01 per cent to 27,222.97, while the S&P 500 rose 0.4 per cent to 2,995.11, and the Nasdaq Composite Index advanced 0.3 per cent to 8,207.24.

Elsewhere in Asia, Tokyo shares opened higher charting Wall Street's strong performance. The Nikkei 225 index was up 0.44 per cent or 91.60 points to 21,137.84 in early trade, while the Topix index rose 0.27 per cent or 4.10 points at 1,538.37.